Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Synopses are summaries of books, written in third
person present tense. Most writers don’t like writing them, because how can we,
for all the gold in the vault of the Central Bank, put our whole novel into one
or two pages? We feel, nay- we think, this is barbarous.

But writing a synopsis is a must. Agents and editors
require it. Many will not even look at a sample of inspired writing unless the
synopsis passes muster.

Let’s be positive here. This is what I find to be
helpful about doing this dastardly deed.

First, it will expose a flawed or nonexistent plot
like no other writing or reading exercise will. Better than a much more wounding
or expensive critique from another. As a writer distills her plot, she also
sees it from a bird’s eye view.

Second, it will reveal themes the writer hadn't realized were there. This is part of the great joy of self-discovery, which is
a part of the raison d'êtrefor writing, pardon my
French.

Third, it will require a focus of the mind, which is
also part of the joy of writing.

Fourth, it will leave a writer feeling virtuous for
having gotten through something necessary but unpleasant.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

When my kids were smaller, I ran
Camp Mama every summer. Summers became the time I did not write any first
drafts. Their school vacation was my on-the-job-times-two.

DD *just* graduated from HS, and I
am adjusting to the fact that I won't "need" to have a summer break.
The thing is, as they got older and I did not need to chase after them, I could
have written in summer. But my writing-rhythm got used to the revving-up the
engine in August, getting going in September, being productive until late May,
unwinding in June, and re-charging the batteries in July.

Someone said, “If it works, don’t
fix it.”

I think I’ll keep my summer break.
At least this one, my last before I move on to the next stage of my life. Get
ready for some empty-nester posts.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

When Jeannette Walls finally told her beau that if he
knew the true story of her childhood he would not want to be with her anymore,
she told of the shame she carried about such severe parental dysfunction she
could not bare to reveal it.

But her soon-to-be husband’s reaction made bearing-all
more than bearable.

“This,” he said, “would make a great book.”

The Glass Castle went on to sell millions of
copies, and Jeannette went on to literary fame. If ever there was a Cinderella
story, this has to be it.

I wonder sometimes if those who were blessed with
wholesome childhoods could become great writers. What do they have to pass on?
That if you eat your peas and mind your manners all shall be well? Great
stories, after all, are about overcoming challenges. Who better to conjure
tales of woe and redemption than those who lived them?

Few have lived the horrendous abuse and neglect Ms.
Wells endured, and fewer who had managed to rise up the social ladder as she
had, long before her memoir was published. But in our way many of us have a story
to tell; variations on the theme.

Fiction, more than memoir, allows us to really go
there. If you write fiction, I’d encourage you to eschew the protective
instinct and let your characters experience that which you know so well: the
helplessness, the deep sorrow, the profound self-doubts. Let them make their
way out of the darkness.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

So many of my stories began with a house. I see a house in real life or
in my mind, and the house won't let go. What happened here? Who lived here,
loved here, left here?

Sometimes the house remains visible
in the final draft, and sometimes it is only perceptible to me. But the house
was the genesis and the anchor to the tale. A sacred or cursed space, left with
only residues waiting to be set free.

It is the storytellers’ duty, as I
see it, to flesh it out and make the house’s story be known.

If this sounds too lofty, and no
doubt it is when the result is a humorous three-hundred-word toddler book, than so it is. It’s a quirk of mine that I take this storytelling
thing seriously. The reader shouldn't, but this writer must.

And so it is with my published
novel for middle grades, The Voice of
Thunder. A house stands at the core of what is happening, a silent
testimony to how we got here.

The house is less obvious in my
picture storybook, There’s a Turkey at
the Door. You’ll have to trust me, the house is there. It is about
home, feeling at home, and going home. The telling made the illustrator focus on the characters and not the house, bless her. It's what was needed. But my
writerly mind was guided by the house.

And so it is at the heart of the
novel for middle grades I am working on now. But here I will give no details.
Like the wonderful and much-lauded writer Avi, I’m of the school that the more
you talk about your work-in-progress, the less you need to write
it. You’ll have to believe that the house is there.

For some the setting is a valley, a
meadow, a beach. For many it is the belly of a bustling city. For the introvert
that I am, everything starts inside. Inside the house, that is.